(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)
The EU has adopted as its own law, with very little alterations, the so-called Prüm Treaty, signed on 27 May 2005 by Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, Luxembourg, The Netherlands and Austria, which allowed the police forces of their countries to compare and exchange data more easily.
The new law, adopted by the European Parliament's report of Fausto Correia (PES, PT) and approved by the Council of Ministers during a meeting of the justice and home office ministers last week, gives the EU member-states three years to rewrite domestic laws in order to comply with it.
"Member states have to adopt legislation on the basis of the decision. They can copy and paste it, it is self-explaining, not like a Directive, which contains only objectives. This agreement contains a huge amount of legislation concerning DNA data and data protection rules." said a spokesman of the European Council.
Peter Hustinx, the EDPS, still expresses his concern and his disappointment for not having been listened to. "It seems that Council has not sufficiently taken my remarks into account."
The new rules will open up police databases but not fully, said the Home Office spokeswoman: "The primary aspects of this are data sharing on fingerprints, DNA samples and vehicle registrations."
"What will happen now is that countries will have the ability automatically to determine immediately whether a member state holds matching DNA or fingerprint information, but they won't have automatic access to the databases or the information itself," she added.
UK had previously resisted joining the Prüm Treaty. "The implications of this treaty are far reaching and will affect all EU citizens," said Philip Bradbourn, Conservative justice and home affairs spokesman. However, UK has signed this new EU deal.
"We are sleepwalking into a Big Brother Europe while our government stands idly by" said Syed Kamall, a British Conservative MEP.
Police will share data across Europe against privacy chief's advice
(14.06.2007)
http://www.out-law.com//default.aspx?page=8148
DNA data deal 'will create Big Brother Europe' (11.06.2007)
http://www.eupolitix.com/EN/News/200706/462d5e3f-1a57-4805-a12e-1cb072...
Prüm Treaty will allow EU27 to exchange DNA data to fight crime (7.06.2007)
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/expert/infopress_page/019-7568-157-...
Controversial data-sharing deal to get the go-ahead (12.06.2007)
http://euobserver.com/9/24244
EDRI-gram: From Schengen to Prüm: Data Protection under 3rd pillar a
prerequisite (28.02.2007)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.4/prum